Tag: Technology

Shanghai-based Executive MBA students encountered some giant Cats this week when they toured the Caterpillar Suzhou factory. Members from Class 12 posed with a 950H Wheel Loader (above) – one of the models of medium wheel loaders and motor graders produced at the Suzhou facility for markets in Asia Pacific, Russia, CIS (former Soviet republics), Africa, the Middle East and South America.

Members of Class 12, Hui Jason Wu, Jimmy Fan, Marcos Delorenzo, and Yi Xu took the initiative to organize this field trip. Thanks to Matt Zelinski, EMBA Class 37, who helped arrange the visit and to Caterpillar’s Stephanie Zhou for planning the details of the tour.

According to the Caterpillar website, “China has become a major manufacturing base for Caterpillar with 26 facilities, 4 R&D centers, 3 logistics and parts centers and more than 15,000 employees. Products such as hydraulic excavators, track-type tractors, wheel loaders, motor graders, diesel engines, undercarriage, iron castings, re-manufactured products machinery components and electric power generator sets are manufactured in China.

Caterpillar’s Suzhou facility was opened in 2006

“Among the 26 facilities in China, the pioneer Caterpillar (Xuzhou) Ltd. and the new bright star Caterpillar (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., are the models.”

Photo credit: Caterpillar website

Photo credit: NoHoDamon, Flickr

Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law professor, author, and activist is giving two lectures on campus Thursday, Oct. 10. Copyright law in the digital age will be the topic of his lecture at 5 p.m. in Simon Hall’s May Auditorium. The lectures are free and open to the public.

At noon, Lessig will deliver a presentation on his plan to remove the corrupting influence of money from American politics, a theme he has explored in his most recent book, Republic Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It. The talk will take place in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in the law school’s Anheuser-Busch Hall.

For more about Lessig’s lectures, read this article in the Record.

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

In the month before graduation, Michael Gidding, MBA’13, was on a global marathon competing in more challenges with his startup Aerosol Control Technologies (ACT). Before packing up and moving to Cambridge, Mike sent an update on ACT’s latest awards and his post-grad plans.

Mike and his ACT partner, Daniel Garcia, clearly have a winning idea with their business plan to use “soft x-rays” to filter diesel particulates based on a patent developed at Washington University.

Here’s Mike’s update:

Daniel Garcia and I traveled to London for the finale (round 3) of the CleanTech Challenge to compete on April 25-26. (Pictured above: Mike and Dan during Q&A session in London.) This competition is organized by University College London and the London Business School. Our team was one of six teams selected for the finale from 151 round 1 applications and 56 round 2 applications.

Sir Andrew Likierman,Dean of the London Business School, congratulates Mike and Daniel on their runner-up status in the CleanTech Challenge.

We finished as the runner up team!

Costs associated with travel and lodging were generously offset by MBA Programs and Engineering Student Services.

Immediately preceding the CleanTech Challenge, I was in NYC at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit April 22-24 Thanks to WCC and Washington University Career Center for funding assistance.

It was a busy week, I left the conference in NYC at 3:30pm Wednesday to catch a 7pm flight to London. I landed at 7am Thursday, just in time to make it through customs at Heathrow and to the London Business School campus for the start of the CleanTech Challenge at 11am that day! (all times are local.))

This fall, Daniel will pursue a PhD in Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University.

I’ve accepted a 6-month fellowship in Boston at Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems in their Techbridge program. I’ll be working with energy-related startups to identify technical milestones, and helping those startups reach those technical milestones using Fraunhofer’s applied research facilities.

Earlier in the month (April 3 & 4) Daniel and I were in Chicago for the Clean Energy Trust Student Challenge. Earlier this year, ACT was awarded $10,000 as the winner of the Missouri Clean Energy Student Challenge.

This award made ACT eligible to present at the Clean Energy Student Challenge on April 4.   While ACT did not win any funds in Chicago on April 4, our presentation turned a lot of heads and gave the technology and WashU some great publicity.

Needless to say, I had a very positive experience competing in the Clean Energy Trust Student Challenge. A press release is from the competition organizers is here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/luminaid-lab-and-bearing-analytics-capture-100000-grand-prizes-at-2013-clean-energy-challenge-2013-04-05

My participation in the Chicago event was funded by MBA Programs.

There are a million and one ways that Olin, SEAS, and Skandalaris Center have helped me in this process. Truly grateful for my experiences at this school.

Best of luck to Mike and Daniel on their future endeavors. And congrats to Mike on earning three degrees last week! In addition to his MBA, he earned a BS in Chemical Engineering and MS in Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering.

Working with entrepreneurs in the CEL Entrepreneur Consulting Team (CELect) Course has been an incredibly valuable learning experience, and has helped engage me in concrete opportunities to develop as a professional. By locating the course at T-REx, (a startup incubator located in the The Railway Exchange Building) Washington University has developed one of its first connections in recent history with downtown St. Louis, which is an intangible but very valuable relationship for the university.

The importance of this development was first brought to my attention about a month ago.  During a discussion with a non-profit leader in the city, I came to realize that in the eyes of many, Washington University has done little to engage with the St. Louis community outside of the University City or Clayton area. With other universities such as St. Louis University involving itself more in the city, and a growing population of young people entering St. Louis, it seems like the perfect time for Wash U to act as a positive force for innovation and sustainable development. The new CELect class is a spring board for a stronger future commitment to downtown St. Louis and to the growing entrepreneurial community in the city.

Now the question is, what is the incentive for the University?

I think the value-add for Wash U is based in the idea of “brain drain”. High quality universities such as Wash U and SLU attract thousands of brilliant youth to St. Louis every year, yet a very small number of these students stay in St. Louis after graduation. I would argue that this occurs, in part, because students are not exposed to the professional or entrepreneurial opportunities available to them within the city. With low costs of living and a great social atmosphere, a young graduate could affordably play a crucial and rewarding role in redeveloping the economy here in St. Louis.

With more direct connections between Wash U, the city of St. Louis, and the bourgeoning tech, biotech, business, and social venture industries, students will more easily realize the opportunities around them. This would create a stronger local alumni network, and create a community of reciprocity within the city.

I am excited to be a part of a course attempting to break this divide, and I hope to see the CELect course and Wash U further leverage the incredible resource of T-REx, as well as Downtown St. Louis as a whole.

-Micajah Dudley is a senior studying International Business. He consulted for Observable Networks, an IT security company and winner of an Arch Grant.

Social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Yelp are fundamentally changing how consumers communicate with each other and evaluate product information.

At Washington University’s Olin Business School, Professor Seethu Seetharaman has been a thought leader on how organizations can navigate the brave new world of social media and its implications with respect to effectively managing businesses.

For established organizations, understanding and embracing social media will ensure that they are not blindsided by disruptive changes in the marketplace, and guide their efforts at sustaining market leadership in the future.

For new business ventures, carefully articulating the role of social media is going to be a critical component in defining their business vision and strategic plan moving forward.

To learn more about the Marketing and Human Resource (HR) implications of social media and learn about new business models that are emerging because of social media, Professor Seetharaman will be engaging the business community in a social media seminar August 24 at the Olin Business School. We invite you to join the conversation.

Leveraging Social Media for Maximum Impact – April 24 at Olin Business School’s Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.